


Shining In Pink

by DictionaryWrites



Series: A Comprehensive Set of Attractions [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Realization, Scars, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-13 01:01:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4501785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Had an ask requesting John & Sherlock with John seeing Sherlock's scars from the 2 year break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shining In Pink

John rubs over his temple as he ascends the stairs of 221B, feeling the slight sweat beginning to bead there already: it's more wedding planning today, and he's very glad Mary and Sherlock are taking the brunt of the invitations and table settings and so on. John's just not great at this sort of thing, but Mary's tremendous, and Sherlock is – surprisingly – taking to it as well.

He turns the key in the lock (and it's strange, like this, turning the key in the lock of a flat that's not his home any more and hasn't been his home for two years but still holds such pull to it), stepping inside, and then he stops short in the doorway. John stares, his expression frozen.

Sherlock is asleep, sprawled with his gangly limbs gracefully akimbo on the sofa, but he's not wearing his usual pyjamas and dressing gown combination for around the flat. It had been very hot last night, by London's standards, and Sherlock won't sleep with a fan on, so presumably he'd just stripped down to his boxers. He sleeps naked, in his own bed, but it's obvious he didn't make it that far.

The soft pink of the silk (because of _course_ Sherlock Holmes wears silk boxers) matches the pink of the thick scars covering Sherlock's shoulder and back.

John takes a slow, halting step forwards, leaving the door ajar behind him with his keys still in the lock, gaze concentrated on his best friend's half-naked body: Sherlock had artfully thrown himself over the couch on his belly, a sheet tangled awkwardly around his ankles and thighs and mostly pooling upon the floor. His face is mashed against the sofa's arm, but he breathes regularly enough. His back is pale in the morning light filtering in through the windows, and the scars are shiny, reflecting the sun.

There are seven or eight of them, long, sharp splits in the skin – not made with the clean edge of a knife, John can tell, but with force and something blunt.

A whip.

Instantly, John's mind flickers to Irene Adler, but he's seen Sherlock shirtless after a night with The Woman before – Irene's welts never lasted more than a few days at the most, and she'd never break the skin or go so low as some of these scars are. The lower ones are far, far too close to Sherlock's kidneys for the comfort of any careful dominatrix.

John hasn't seen Sherlock without his clothes on in years, not since before his apparent suicide off St Bart's – Sherlock isn't exactly a _nudist_ , but he'd occasionally walk around the flat with fewer clothes on than he ought have, but John had never complained. Not really.

Sherlock's back, before, had been an expanse of pale white, bones showing under the skin at the right angle and the barest ghost of smattered freckles plain on his hips and thighs. Maybe occasionally there'd be a graze or a bruise from a case, but never anything like this. Now, the scars cover the centre of it, concentrated on either side of his spine, and clawed marks show on his hips, on his sides...

John feels like being sick, all of a sudden, and he puts his hand over his mouth as he feels himself gag. He sees it all so clearly, so clearly he can't push away the thoughts: Sherlock stretched over a clinically shining exam table with his wrists and ankles tied, biting his forearm to keep from screaming; Sherlock on his hands and knees in the dust, gasping as the strikes hit and his blood drops thick on the sand; Sherlock suspended by his arms, trying not to cry out as his captor rubs lemon and salt over the new wounds--

“John?” Sherlock's tone is a mix of sleepy, concerned and confused, and only as Sherlock blearily regards him does John realize his fevered utterance of Sherlock's name had been aloud.

Sherlock is standing all of a sudden, and John sees now that his chest is scarred too, small criss-crossed thatches of blade cuts, burns from cigarettes and cigars, a thick, ugly bulb of scar tissue John knows is from a bullet, because it matches his own. More whip marks are plain in the centre of his chest and on his belly, and God, God, it's _awful_.

Sherlock's usually bare skin is marked in places by the slight growth of thin, dark hairs, and John realizes that Sherlock's usually obsessive shaving routine ( _“_ My brother considers every hair below his nose the _enemy_ , John. I suggest you not interrupt him while he shaves.” “Oh, right. Uh, alright, Mycroft.”) is likely interrupted by the newly sensitive skin of the unmarred skin in the divots of those thick, shining valleys of tortured flesh.

Sherlock's right hand settles awkwardly on John's shoulder, an attempt at offering comfort even as he leans down and squints slightly, trying to meet John's eyes: John leans in to hug him on impulse, and Sherlock returns the gesture immediately, cradling the back of John's head the way he does Mrs Hudson's, but as soon as John's cheek meets the other man's chest he feels the rough-and-smooth marks of the burns, the cuts, a rough patch that feels like it might have been _sanded_ , and John abruptly scrambles back on pure impulse, tripping back over the coffee table and smacking his head _hard_ on the brick base of the hearth.

“John!” Sherlock says sharply, an undertone of desperation plain in his voice, and then, “Mary, Mary, _please_ -” John's never heard Sherlock beg like that before. “I don't know what I did--” John realizes the last time he'd heard Sherlock sound this upset, this _panicked_ , had been as he locked down at John from the roof of St Bart's hospital. Mary's arm enters his vision and he grips at it so tightly he knows her skin will bruise, but she doesn't pull her wrist away.

She doesn't even flinch.

It would almost be comical, the sight of an almost-naked Sherlock Holmes stood still and terrified in the middle of his front room, fretting over John, but it's not funny.

It's not funny at _all_.

John feels himself gag again, and Mary supports him as he tries to stand, leaning to get a look at the back of his head, but he knows he's not bleeding. “Put some clothes on!” John barks sharply at Sherlock, and Sherlock freezes, _staring_ at him all but owlishly for a few seconds before he steps away and rushes into his own bedroom.

John heaves in gasps as he sits down on the space Sherlock had vacated, and Mary crouches in front of him, staring at his face. “What's wrong, what is it?” Mary asks, twisting her lips, and John just shakes his head, swallowing another retch. “John?”

“He was never- he-” John swallows, swallows hard, and then says hoarsely, “He never had scars like that before.” Mary's face softens, the concern becoming something deeper, and he leans: their foreheads touch, and he realizes that the clutch he has on her jacket is turning his knuckles white. He lets her go, and she cups his face for a few moments, lips pressed together.

Sherlock stays still in the doorway, staring at the both of them, and John says, with a little effort, “Sorry.”

“The scars,” Sherlock says quietly, voice low and rumbling as he pulls the rope of his dressing gown tight around his waist. “Sorry. I didn't mean to let you see them.” It hits John like a punch to the gut – the apology, bizarre in itself from Sherlock, but then what he's sorry _for_.

“Where'd you get them?” John asks, voice catching in his throat, and Sherlock shrugs.

“Two years dismantling Moriarty's web, John,” Sherlock says lowly, glancing at Mary and then at John. “I occasionally had to make some sacrifice.” Mary's fingers interlink with John's own, and she squeezes his hand, a bare comfort.

“Some _sacrifice_? You look like a **horror** show!” John snaps, and Sherlock sets his jaw. It would figure, of course, that Sherlock would come back, upset John's entire life, settle himself peaceably, normally, and then drop something _else_ on John's head.

“I'm sorry my _body_ doesn't meet your approval, John,” Sherlock retorts coldly, and the gentle thumb running over the side of his hand is meant to distract John, but it doesn't.

“That's not what I meant-” Sherlock _huffs_ at him. “I just- I didn't expect it. I thought you were fine.”

“I _am_ fine.” is the only response he gets, initially, every word viciously pronounced, but then Sherlock's expression changes, if only in a minuscule fashion, and he says, “I'm alright. I knew it would upset you.”

“Mycroft knew?”

“Mycroft brought me home,” Sherlock says, the admission slightly awkward, and he gives a shrug. “Some of them are new. Ish. Most are older.” He hovers in his place, and then crosses the room, to John and Mary, and he reaches out, touching John's shoulder once more. It's a quietly tender motion, especially for Sherlock, and it's followed by a squared jaw and raised chin as he turns on his heel. “Well! Wedding plans.”

“Is that it, then? Sensitive heart-to-heart done with?” Mary asks, rapier sharp, and Sherlock turns to stare at her.

“Uh--”

“I can leave, you know. If you boys want to chat about it.” Mary's tone has a teasing quality to it, but it's not an unpleasant one.

“We don't.” John and Sherlock speak at the same time, the two words perfectly synchronized, and Sherlock nods to John. John returns the nod, breathing in.

He wants to know. He wants to know exactly how Sherlock got all those _awful_ bloody marks, but he doesn't want to ask – he's not sure he could stand it if he did.

He doesn't like Sherlock in pain. It reminds him too much of Sherlock _dead_.

“Wedding plans!”

“Wedding plans,” Mary and John agree, and John kisses her hand before he lets it go. They'll talk about it, later tonight – Mary will understand, John knows, and Mary will say the right things.

To John, and to Sherlock.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Requests are open and encouraged! Send them [here.](http://dictionarywrites.tumblr.com/ask)


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